Secret Story (6 page)

The photographer unzipped his bag and cocked his head at Kathy. “Can I borrow a knife? The biggest you’ve got,” he said and passed Dudley the carving knife she gave him. “Come at me with this. Try and look dangerous.”

Dudley was resisting temptation when Kathy said “Is that necessary? He’s a writer, not a murderer.”

As Dudley dropped the knife on the table Patricia said “How about where you write?”

“Let me just run and tidy up a bit,” Kathy intervened. “I shouldn’t be long.”

“You’ve messed about in my room enough. You can’t go in there any more.”

As the photographer narrowed his eyes Patricia said “Maybe I’ve got a solution.”

“I do hope so,” Dudley’s mother said in more words than he would have used.

Patricia took a phone from her handbag and thumbed a stored number. “Walt? Patricia . . . Fine so far, but I was wondering about the photo . . . I thought we could wait till he meets Vincent, if Tom doesn’t mind.”

“Tom won’t have to,” the photographer said, zipping his bag shut.

“He is. I’ll put him on.”

Dudley was eager to see Tom being reprimanded for his comment, and was thrown when Patricia handed him the mobile. It carried the warmth of her cheek and the faintest scent of soap. He held it away from his face to say “Hello?” and more forcefully “This is Dudley Smith.”

“How’s the star?” an unexpectedly American voice enquired. “We’re all anxious to meet you, one of us in particular.”

“You, you mean.”

“Nobody more so but no, not me right now. A young moviemaker called Vincent Davis. He’s made a bunch of short movies around Liverpool that we’re giving away with our first issue. He’s fired up to make a feature, which is why you need to get together pronto.”

“Why do I, do we?”

“For the movie of your story. He wants more ideas from you.”

In an instant Dudley’s brain was empty of ideas and even of words he could risk uttering. He was gazing at the display that appeared to be built of fragments of charred matchsticks, as if it could somehow help him think, when the mobile said “Let’s plan for the world to know your name and Vincent’s by the time
we’re through. He’s away this weekend, but I’ll track him down. See you very soon. Let me have Patricia.”

“It’s fixed, then?” she asked the phone. “Good enough,” she said and dropped the mobile in her handbag. “Shall we continue?”

“I don’t want to answer any more questions,” Dudley blurted. “I’ve got one. Suppose I don’t want my story filmed?”

“I think you’ve given us the right, if you remember what you signed.”

Dudley would have shouted that he didn’t, but Patricia was swifter. “Thanks for looking after us, Kathy. It was good to meet you both.”

Dudley watched his mother let her and Tom out of the house, and then he used the carving-knife to flick typescripts aside. “Do be careful,” Kathy said as she rejoined him. “You don’t want to hurt anyone with that.”

He felt the blade nick the margin of a story and imagined it cutting into flesh. The contract with the magazine was almost at the bottom of the pile.
All subsidiary rights, including reprint, translation, cartoon, merchandising, electronic, motion picture, television, dramatic
—his gaze fled across the text until several phrases arrested it—
will be negotiated by the Publisher and/or their Agents on behalf of the Author, all proceeds to be shared equally between the Publisher and the Author after deduction of any Agent’s fees
. He jabbed at the clause with the knife, almost pinning the page to the table. “You made me sign it. You didn’t even give me time to see what it said.”

“You could have taken the time, Dudley. You’re a grown man, after all.” She ventured to stand next to him and used a fingertip to slant the contract towards her. “I suppose you can’t expect too much when you’re just starting out,” she said. “Once you’re established they’ll have to give you the terms you deserve.”

The division of his income hadn’t been the issue, but now it aggravated his trapped rage. “Do put the knife down,” his mother said. “You’re making me nervous.”

Was she leaving her hand beside it to coax him? Stabbing her might be a substitute for teaching his own hand not to obey anyone except him. He imagined driving the point between the tendons and twisting the blade, but there would be no pain for him to feel. He dropped the knife, which spun like a compass blade and ended up indicating him as he gathered the contract and typescripts. He was in the hall when Kathy said “You aren’t worrying what the film will be like, are you? I’m sure they won’t spoil your story if they’re asking you to be involved.”

He told himself that she wasn’t deliberately taunting him, and retreated to his bedroom, where he stared hot-eyed out of the window. He had to be even more careful now that so much was out of his hands—and then a smile crept over his face. Kathy had meant to reassure him, and perhaps she had inadvertently succeeded. Hardly any films stayed true to the stories they were based on, but that was no reason to assume this one would stray closer to reality. Indeed, he would be able to ensure that it went nowhere near.

As Dudley’s client—a fat pallid twenty-year-old in baggy purple shorts and sandals with a shirt tied around his waist—set forth from the counter to take up stacking shelves in Frugo, a woman seated on the front row of bucket chairs stood up. She was dressed in a white sleeveless blouse with pearl or at any rate pearly buttons and a loose yellow ankle-length skirt of little shape. Though she wasn’t holding the next ticket, she hurried to Dudley’s booth, fanning herself with a wide-brimmed straw hat. “You’re the one, aren’t you?” she said. “You’re the man I’m looking for.”

She was well past forty, and he’d been hoping someone else would have to tell her how few jobs she was eligible for, but now he saw that she wasn’t a client. “If it’s to do with my story I am,” he said.

“Your story.”

“The one that’s going to be published. Or the story of my life if that’s what you want.”

“My daughter and I know quite enough about you, thank you.”

“Are you the editor? She can ask me more things if she wants, or you can.”

“What are you—” The woman sat forward so sharply that the hat in her lap creaked like an overloaded basket. “Yes, I’ll ask you something,” she said, raising her voice. “Why did you call her a prostitute when she came looking for work?”

His expectations gave way, dumping him back into the banality of the office and worse. He was barely interested in protesting “I didn’t.”

“She says you did. Just you tell me why she’d lie, which she never does. You’d better take more care what you say if you want to keep your job.”

“Maybe I don’t. Maybe I won’t need it.” As he tried to keep his lips still while he muttered this, the stagnant heat grew perfumed. “Trouble, Dudley?” Mrs Wimbourne said as if echoing herself.

“My daughter came looking for work I won’t pretend I approve of. But it isn’t up to anyone behind your counter to approve or disapprove of it, and your junior called her a prostitute.”

“I’m nobody’s junior.”

“All right, Dudley, I’m dealing with this.” To the woman Mrs Wimbourne said “I remember the incident. I believe there was a misunderstanding.”

“All I told her was there are jobs we aren’t allowed to offer.”

“I’m afraid that’s the case, madam.”

“What is? That you set yourselves up in judgement on how people make a living or my daughter is a liar?”

“I wouldn’t say either, and I’m sure Mr Smith—”

“If you want my opinion or for that matter if you don’t, you’re surer of him than he deserves. I’d advise keeping an eye
on him.” The woman demonstrated this before thrusting back her chair as if recoiling from him. “I expect you can get away with anything if you’re working for the state,” she said and immediately made for the door.

As Lionel stood aside to let her out, Mrs Wimbourne said “What’s this about being published? Come and enlighten me.”

Why did she want to talk in private? His colleagues were eager to hear. As he followed her into the staffroom he pretended to close the door but left it an inch ajar. Mrs Wimbourne reached into her handbag on the table before apparently realising that even she wasn’t allowed to smoke on the premises. Perhaps that was why her voice sharpened. “What’s it about, then?”

“I’ve got a story in a magazine and it’s going to be filmed as well.”

“How definite is that? You’re not just trying to impress Colette.”

“I’m certainly not,” he said, indifferent whether Colette heard. “It’s very definite.”

“The story’s not based on reality, is it?”

Though they were shut away from the sun, the light seemed to flare up around him. “Why should it be? It’s a story.”

“It isn’t based on what you do.”

He cleared his throat, which helped him more to speak than think. “What? What do I do?”

“Once you leave this office that’s no concern of mine. I mean your work here. You haven’t written about that.”

He couldn’t quite suppress a splutter. “I wouldn’t. What’s there to write about?”

“I didn’t know you thought so little of your job. You ought to have asked permission to be published.”

“What’s that to do with anybody here?”

“You may well ask, and a bit late too. You seemed to want everyone to hear about it before. Perhaps you’ve forgotten your
conditions of service. You’re supposed to apply to us in writing before you accept any competing employment. Where are you going?”

“The door isn’t shut.”

“Leave it open, then. What have you to say for yourself?”

“How can writing be competing? Except I won a competition.” When she received this with no esteem of his wit he complained “It doesn’t make sense.”

“I’ll decide that. Let me have full details. I want to be told, and right now.”

“It’s about someone who gets herself murdered because she doesn’t appreciate someone and thinks she knows all about him.” Having given Mrs Wimbourne time to interpret that how she liked, he said “It’ll be in the first issue of
Mersey Mouth
.”

“I’ll need to have a word with someone at the top. Meanwhile you’d better warn your magazine that there may be a problem. I certainly remember civil servants being forbidden to have all kinds of other jobs when I was your age. Are you going to give your magazine a quick call?”

“Not yet.”

Her lips parted with a curt dry sound. “Then you’d best get back to work.”

How dare she talk about his age and act like a headmistress? As he took his hot stiff face out of the staffroom he glared at the backs of his colleagues’ heads and at the scattered hopefuls, challenging any of them to betray that they’d overheard. “Thirtyseven,” he shouted, summoning a young mother and her baby, which commenced screaming at the sight of him. While she rocked it in its push-chair and then in her arms and attempted to placate it with a bottle that aggravated its distress, he yelled questions and eventually managed to select a job with a playgroup from the descriptions twitching up the computer screen. At last
that rid him of the cries that made the screen appear to throb as if his headache had been rendered visible. He didn’t know if any aspect of his performance brought Mrs Wimbourne to stoop over him as Lionel opened the door for the strident push-chair. “Better take your lunch now,” Mrs Wimbourne said.

Someone else would have to deal with the young man who strode into the office as if searching for a fight, his thin pale face mottled with more than the freckles that resembled faded samples of the red of his hair. Dudley was giving him a wide berth on the way to the door when his mobile rang. “Dudley Smith,” he said.

“It’s Patricia from the
Mouth
.”

“I’ll step outside,” he said and emerged into the crowded sunlight. “I’m here.”

“Vincent’s back in town. Would tomorrow work? Walt suggests we all meet in Ringo’s Kit in Penny Lane.”

“Tonight if you like.”

“Don’t worry, meeting isn’t quite that urgent. Eight o’clock tomorrow, then? Vincent wants you to bring all your stories. I’ve been talking them up.”

“Which?” he said so fiercely that his spit glistened on a woman’s back.

“Just generally. None in particular.”

“Then don’t tell him any more.”

He only had to think up new ideas to offer the director. Dudley did away with Patricia and dropped the phone in his breast pocket. He was heading for the sandwich shop beyond the discount markets and charity stores when a man shouted “Dudley Smith.”

He was unable to identify the speaker until the fellow took another step towards him. “Are you called Dudley Smith?”

His thin pale face was blotchier than ever; even the freckles looked angry now. “I’m sorry,” Dudley felt bound to say. “Were you after me before?”

“Still am.”

“Where are you from?”

“Where does it sound like? Round here. What’s it to you?”

This was more combative than Dudley thought reasonable. “Who sent you, I mean.”

“Nobody sent me.” Pallor was turning the freckles virtually incandescent. “I came by myself.”

“You’re freelance, you mean. Nothing wrong with that. You’re like me.”

“I’m bloody not. Don’t you make out I am.”

“Look, what exactly do you want? I’m supposed to be having my lunch.”

“So you can get your strength up to hurt some more women?”

All the heat and light seemed to converge on Dudley as if the sky had been transformed into a magnifying glass. He had to work his tongue inside his mouth and lick his lips to say “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Where did you get my name?”

“Where do you think? You were shouting it all over the place before.”

“Why shouldn’t I? I’m a writer.”

“So that’s why you think you can sneer at anyone that comes to you for help.”

“Who says I do?”

“My sister and my mother. Go on, call her a liar as well.”

His face blazed white and red as if ensuring Dudley recognised the similarity to the freckled would-be table dancer. “I didn’t say that about anyone,” Dudley said. “You’ll have to excuse me. I want my lunch.”

As Dudley turned towards the sandwich shop the man stepped in front of him. “I won’t excuse you, no.”